Wynter's shift from using the word science to using scientia as a means to speak about bodies in biological and cultural terms took me aback when first reading the chapters of Sylvia Winter on Being Human as Praxis.
It is reminiscent, although not surprisingly so, of the lingual shift McKittrick makes in her book Demonic Grounds, wherein she seeks to utilize a vocabulary and an arsenal of new modalities to speak about space and Blackness, and Blackness in certain geographies/cartographies without relying on words and frameworks that were built on the exclusion of Blackness.
To return to Wynter, the shift is a reconfiguration that is as jarring and as complicated as it is needed. This bios-mythoi relationship that Wynter points to is almost calming - almost overwhelming in the sense of peace it engenders. I find that there is a profound sense of ease created when thinking of humaneness as being as a sort interplay of biology and culture, without either element being especially privileged over the other. They work in tandem and as such, many of the racialized scientific methods (eugenics, sterilization, etc) that are embedded into the fabric of 'science' that often excluded more than it included, can be bracketed for a more holistic understanding of race and lived experiences that is offered through vocabularies, discourses and modes of address that are more 'cultural' in their content.
This scientia that Wynter and McKittrick speak of is not confined to a biological/biocentric way of thinking about physiology or neurology, but also extends into seeing scientia as creative, such as in the realms of music, music making and the like (242). And it is in this way that it differs greatly from science, because of its expansiveness as a conceptual framework and desire to see past the biocentric view of humaneness. This one of many passages I found particularly moving:
It is reminiscent, although not surprisingly so, of the lingual shift McKittrick makes in her book Demonic Grounds, wherein she seeks to utilize a vocabulary and an arsenal of new modalities to speak about space and Blackness, and Blackness in certain geographies/cartographies without relying on words and frameworks that were built on the exclusion of Blackness.
To return to Wynter, the shift is a reconfiguration that is as jarring and as complicated as it is needed. This bios-mythoi relationship that Wynter points to is almost calming - almost overwhelming in the sense of peace it engenders. I find that there is a profound sense of ease created when thinking of humaneness as being as a sort interplay of biology and culture, without either element being especially privileged over the other. They work in tandem and as such, many of the racialized scientific methods (eugenics, sterilization, etc) that are embedded into the fabric of 'science' that often excluded more than it included, can be bracketed for a more holistic understanding of race and lived experiences that is offered through vocabularies, discourses and modes of address that are more 'cultural' in their content.
This scientia that Wynter and McKittrick speak of is not confined to a biological/biocentric way of thinking about physiology or neurology, but also extends into seeing scientia as creative, such as in the realms of music, music making and the like (242). And it is in this way that it differs greatly from science, because of its expansiveness as a conceptual framework and desire to see past the biocentric view of humaneness. This one of many passages I found particularly moving:
This is an interdisciplinary and collaborative task, one that allows us to think about how the creative narrative can and does contribute to what is otherwise understood as “the laws of nature,” thus creating an intellectual space to explore the worlds of those communities who are otherwise considered unscientific, scientifically inferior, endangered, and/or too alien to comprehend... Like Wynter, Philip suggests that the artist solders together self, flesh, physiology, and the word—bios-mythoi, cognition-neurologycreativity, phylogeny-ontogeny-sociogeny—to newly describe an ongoing, but hopeful, struggle. (236-237)
Following Wynter and McKittrick is rewarding but it also requires a considerable amount of 'brain-rewiring', so to speak. It's difficult to make this lingual shifts and even harder to not to feel bad about how you weren't able to see how these shifts needed to happen earlier. It feels like an unending process of relearning and it's difficult. I suppose this is the "hopeful struggle" that McKittrick speaks of...
I feel my post is related to yours, and so I'll write it here. I may not respond directly, but I suspect there will be parallels.
ReplyDeleteSomething that has stayed with me since last class was the phrase, "science as modern grammar."
I have spent time previously thinking about the overarching grasp of scientific knowledge within western culture, however, something clicked inside my being when it was linked with the word "grammar". In this way it can be seen as a way of speaking - a colour to make logic with.
Yesterday in a class on the performance of memory that I am attending, there was a Psychology teacher who came in to give a lecture. He used power points which had boxes and arrows with diagrams, labels. He spoke of different types of memory, explicit, implicit, all to do with the brain.
I could hardly sit still in my seat - I shook, shifted, stretched - all because I had a comment about everything he said, and yet felt he wasn't the person who needed to hear what I was bursting to say.
What is this outdated knowledge? Why is it presented as current? Seriously, psychology as a compartmentalised subject that says that memory exists in the brain? It was almost too ridiculous. It completely side steps the intersections of the body and mind. As well, it was being presented as how we currently understand consciousness and memory in a university setting (!)
It is white knowledge! It is patriarchal knowledge!
This can't be allowed anymore - to have a so called, expert, come in and speak to students as if we don't already have knowledge in our body-spirit-mind-heart that we can't discuss and figure out together.
When Denise mentioned how she relates to pedagogy in its richest contemporary manifestation, "...being together, living together with a common task, and a huge element of emotional care." THIS, this, this is how and what I am craving. And it is happening and also almost happening in our class. I feel there is still somehow hesitancy in sharing and togethering within the class. How can we create a safer space I wonder? For me, I feel shy in relationship to the use of language in the class - I sometimes need translations into simpler language. Is that possible, I wonder, without losing too much of what needs touching and massaging? I realise that there is a lot of language dialect creation and practice being used in the sense lab, and in our class, and I really deeply respect that because know the power words can have in creating how we relate to ourselves and the world.
One silly suggestion that can be used - "Explain what you just said as if you are talking to a 5 year old." .... It is actually a very difficult exercise....not sure if it is related to the class, however it popped into my being because I think about accessibility of knowledge a lot. Playful language, translation into mediums such as gesture or song.....there's a wide range that could happen.
How do we abolish the world as we know it? (Denise)
Denise is such a beautiful human. So appreciative of her presence and wisdom.
Such wonderful thoughts here. Kai, I agree that we need to not be afraid to ask, but also to understand that 5-year-old-speak can sound like something we don't know how to hear too! Let's never assume we know how to hear anything! (and yes to moving beyond antiquated notions of brain-body separation!). The rewiring is so necessary that Kelann writes about above, and it includes the not-knowing, I think. Kelann, you work so beautifully through Wynter's text (with McKittrick). Thank you for that.
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